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Chorus from The Returning<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n We are the people, the nation and the state<\/p>\n We are the inscriptions, the documents<\/p>\n The declarations, the pomp and the circumstance,<\/p>\n The structures of being, the bedrock of commerce<\/p>\n The official face of the face in the mirror<\/p>\n Listen!<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n We are the people, the nation and the state<\/p>\n We are the stamps you must lick, the forms you must fill<\/p>\n The dues you must pay, the creditor at your door,<\/p>\n We are the duplicate, triplicate, quadruplicate infinitude<\/p>\n Of all you must say once, then twice and again<\/p>\n Until you have said it to our mutual satisfaction<\/p>\n Listen!<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n We are the people, the nation and the state,<\/p>\n The statues in squares, the graven monoliths,<\/p>\n The bones of survival, the blindfolded judge,<\/p>\n We are the corpus of the corporeal<\/p>\n We are your heroes, your champions in the field<\/p>\n We are the field, the grass and the meadow<\/p>\n We are your long and terrible shadow<\/p>\n Listen!<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n George Szirtes<\/strong> published his first book of poems, The Slant Door<\/em>, in 1979. It won the Faber Memorial Prize. Has published many since then, Reel<\/em> (2004) winning the T S Eliot Prize, for which he has been twice shortlisted since. His latest book is Mapping the Delta<\/em> (Bloodaxe 2016).\u00a0 For more information: http:\/\/georgeszirtes.blogspot.co.uk\/<\/a><\/p>\n Note: This is the last chorus taken from an oratorio titled The Returning<\/em>, about the end of the First World War.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chorus from The Returning We are the people, the nation and the state We are the inscriptions, the documents The declarations, the pomp and the circumstance, The structures of being, the bedrock of commerce The official face of the face in the mirror Listen! We are the people, the nation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[136,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-poetry-picks","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15159"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15162,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15159\/revisions\/15162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}